


Caligraphy (The Words We Can't Say)

by Isnt_it_pretty_to_think_so



Series: Spiderbros [2]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Skip Westcott (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2020-04-08 03:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19098796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isnt_it_pretty_to_think_so/pseuds/Isnt_it_pretty_to_think_so
Summary: Sequel to Hot Chocolate.“Every word you say is important,” Peter tells Natasha. “There’s no bullshit with you. Me, I’m always babbling about something or another. You know what they say, Peter Parker just can’t shut up. My facehole is awash with the English language. My mouth spews diction like—,”“Peter.”“You see what I mean?” he asks, smiling slightly even though nothing about his insecurity is amusing. “I just . . . I feel like nothing I say matters.”





	1. Unable to Speak

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to Hot Chocolate.
> 
> Infinity War referenced, non canon compliant with Endgame.

It starts like this.

Peter’s sitting at his desk, doing chem homework. It’s easy and boring, and his eyes keep drifting to the paper bag in his closet, the one that he uses to hide the Spiderman suit.

Everything is loud. Peter can hear Mr. Lincoln arguing with his boss on the phone two apartments over. He can hear the lady in the apartment beneath them whistling under her breath as she makes a midnight snack. He can hear May turning the pages in her book as she gets ready to go to sleep.

He hears all of it. Every word, every beat, every breath. And, yeah, his head is pounding and his eyes hurt and all he wants is to put on the suit and tell Karen to initiate Naptime Protocol so the sounds and lights go away. But he can’t, because it’s almost midnight and he has a test tomorrow.

He writes _shutupshutupshutup_ on the corner of his paper, underneath row upon row of balanced equations. He erases it the next morning, before he turns it in.

\---

“Words have power,” Nat tells him. 

They’re in the kitchen. It’s somewhere between the middle of the night and early morning. Ben used to call this time No Man’s Land. Peter used to wake the entire apartment complex up with his screams, back when his nightmares revolved around his parents dying and Steven fucking Westcott’s perfect teeth and tight jeans. 

These days Peter dreams about the vulture and being crushed under a pile of rocks. These days Peter can control his dreams. He doesn’t have night terrors like he did when he was a kid. He doesn’t scream out in his sleep, and he doesn’t suffocate himself in his pillow. 

These days he meets Nat in the kitchen. She doesn’t sleep, either. She talks about it sometimes—talks about the time she didn’t sleep for forty hours straight, because she was undercover in a Hydra cell and she was afraid someone would slit her throat if she drifted off. She talks about how most Red Room survivors handcuff themselves to their own beds every night, because that’s how the little girls are put to sleep at night. 

Nat always looks faintly surprised after she tells him things like this. Her red eyebrows draw together and her nose wrinkles, a small flaw in her indifferent mask.

Peter loves Nat in such a different way than he loves Aunt May. May teaches him how to be kind and good. Nat would help him hide a body. He needs them both so much; two maternal figures that never wanted kids but have wrapped themselves around him without the slightest hesitation.

Nat is so beautiful; there’s a warning in her eyes that never really goes away. She’s always poised, always elegant, always refined. Every word that falls from her lips is spoken with the most careful precision. Peter sometimes wonders if she only asks questions when she already knows the answer.

“How do you do it?” he asks her one night, after waking up from an especially bad nightmare. Tonight’s nightmare didn’t even make any sense; he was cooking lasagna with May in the kitchen, and suddenly May was on fire and Uncle Ben was standing beside her chugging a gallon of kerosene while Professor Dumbledore tried to attach a saddle to Pumba from the Lion King.

“How do I do what?” Nat asks while she measures cocoa powder into two mugs to make them hot chocolate.

“Talk,” Peter says. Nat raises her eyebrows at him. Her red hair falls in gentle curls around her face, and Peter wonders distantly how she can function on so little sleep. He certainly can’t.

“I mean, talk . . . talk the way you do,” Peter says.

Nat doesn’t look offended. Peter sometimes wonders if he’s incapable of saying something that will rub her the wrong way. He’s seen the tension in her shoulders when she talks to others, the wariness in her eyes when there’s someone in between her and the door. He’s more observant than he lets on. But these nights they share in No Man’s Land, Nat is as close as she ever gets to openness. 

Peter sometimes wonders if her hot chocolate has magical properties.

“How do I talk?” Nat asks. There’s a glimmer of amusement in her eyes, but she’s not laughing at him.

“Every word you say is important,” Peter says. “There’s no bullshit with you. Me, I’m always babbling about something or another. You know what they say, Peter Parker just can’t shut up. My facehole is awash with the English language. My mouth spews diction like—,”

“Peter.”

“You see what I mean?” he asks, smiling slightly even though nothing about his insecurity is amusing. “I just . . . I feel like nothing I say matters.”

Nat tilts her head and surveys him like she’s dissecting him under a microscope. 

“Words have power,” she says finally.

It’s not a pointed comment. She’s making an observation, but her light tone and gentle eyes are comforting. A small tremor runs through him. 

He’s too exhausted to respond.

“Rest,” Nat tells him.

She pulls out a gun and begins to polish it with one of Tony’s dishcloths. The noise is familiar and soothing. Peter leans his head down to the kitchen table, using his chem textbook as a pillow, and allows the scent of hot chocolate to bridge the gap between reality and dream.

 

\---

 

Patrol sucks.

Peter gets beaten up by a stray cat that obviously doesn’t want to go to the shelter (probably a wise choice, Peter thinks as he nurses his scratches, because there’s a good chance it would just get put down anyway). He busts into an apartment when he hears people yelling, but it turns out they were just running lines for some play. They threaten to sue. 

When he gets home, he’s angry and bitter and so frustrated he can’t see straight. May is in the kitchen, humming while she cooks, but Peter doesn’t want to tell her he’s home. Because there’s a good chance he’ll snap and lash out, and May doesn’t deserve that.

He writes _so tired_ on his hand with a sharpie. He has to scrub his wrist really hard with soap before the words come off. The reddened, raw skin has healed by the time May asks him to set for dinner.

 

\---

Peter and Ned are in the back of Lit class, brainstorming ideas for the end-of-semester project. Ned cracks some joke, and it’s not even that funny, but Peter starts laughing and can’t stop. And then they’re both just cackling, trying to smother their jubilation in their fists while the rest of the class rolls their eyes and ignores them.

“What’s so funny?” MJ asks suspiciously from the next desk over, where she’s working with Abraham.

“Nothing,” they say in unison.

MJ looks over at the list Peter is making. It’s short, and all of the ideas are crossed out except for two.

“Don’t do a poster,” she says. “Posters are stupid.”

Peter frowns. “You’re always working on those activism posters.”

“Posters about the symbolism in The Color Purple are stupid,” amends MJ.

“What are you doing for your project, then?” asks Ned.

“Something badass,” MJ says coolly, and Abraham nods authoritatively beside her.

Peter can’t stop himself from smiling at her. 

MJ takes one last look at his list. “You have really pretty handwriting,” she says nonchalantly, and then she’s turning away from him like she didn’t just rock the fundamentals of his world.

At the end of the period, when Ned asks him to read the list back, Peter realizes with horror he’s just written _MJ_ over and over again instead of taking notes.

“Dude,” says Ned, peering over his shoulder. “I’m embarrassed for you. You’re so screwed.”

 

\---

 

“Do I even want to know what you’re writing in that notebook?” Nat asks.

It’s late. They’ve past No Man’s Land and are firmly in the territory of early morning. In just a few hours, Happy will be here to drive Peter to school.

Peter drains the dregs of his hot chocolate, and a shudder runs through his body at the warmth. Nat gives him an amused smile and gets up to make more.

Peter glances down at the open notebook in front of him. He’s supposed to be outlining an essay for psych about Stockholm syndrome. Instead, he’s written the word _Beauty. Beast. Beauty. Beast._ about a hundred times.

Huh. That’s new. At least he can see the connection this time.

“It’s nothing,” says Peter, quickly shutting the notebook. “Just some meaningless words. Not a big deal.”

It is. He just doesn’t know it yet.

 

\---

 

Peter wants to scream.

He tries to focus on whatever the Spanish teacher, Profe, is saying, but his head is splitting open and he thinks he might be about to throw up all over everything. He tries to ground himself, tries to concentrate on the little things, like the crunch of Ned’s potato chips and the birds chirping outside. But his entire body feels like it’s about to disappear into dust again, and he really, really can’t handle it.

His ballpoint pen is moving on the lined paper in front of him. He’s not making words this time, he’s just scribbling. He wants to scream or cry or throw something. He pushes down harder and the lines go deeper and suddenly the pen snaps and black ink is all over his hands.

Profe doesn’t notice. Neither does Ned, who’s gaze is unfocused as he stares out the window.

MJ notices.

She slides into the empty seat next to him and silently hands him a paper napkin. He quirks his lips in a rueful smile and wipes the ink off of his hands.

“You look like shit,” she mutters in his ear. Her rosemary shampoo smells really nice, and it clears some of the noise in his head.

“Thanks,” he whispers back.

She hands him a new pen. He looks at her, perplexed.

“It’s a push-pen,” she explains. “Calligraphy,” she clarifies when he continues to look confused. “I’m going to teach you.”

“You know calligraphy?”

“I know how to do calligraphy with a push-pen,” MJ corrects him. She hands him a sheet of paper, and he takes it with shaking hands.

His brain autofocuses on her voice, completely tuning Profe out. It should be a problem, but it’s not. Ned is taking notes for him, because Ned is perfect and somehow gets how much he needs this. And MJ is talking to him in a low voice about the principals of calligraphy.

His hand stops shaking as soon as he starts trying to form letters.

 

\---

 

“Thick coming down, thin going up,” Peter tells Nat insistently.

“Am I a bad role model if I make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke?” Nat asks, silently handing him a mug of hot chocolate. This is the third time this month that Peter’s slept less than her. Peter can see the worry in her eyes as she surveys him over the lip of her ceramic mug.

Peter grins at her.

It was three AM when Nat found Peter in the kitchen, spine curled over his purple notebook, hands working obsessively to form the letters. He’s pretty good; his slant is a little off, sometimes, but that’s okay. MJ has given him a cheat sheet so he can learn letters on his own. And he’s getting better.

“Thin on the upstroke, thick on the down stroke. It’s the core principal of calligraphy,” Peter explains. “On the upstroke, you want the line to be as thin as possible, so you take pressure off of the pen. But on the downstroke, you want the line to be thick so you push the pen down and the line gets thicker.”

_The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The . . ._

“Impressive,” Nat says, looking at the words over his shoulder. “But you know what else is impressive? When itsy bitsy spiders get the beauty sleep they need, instead of staying up half the night to practice cursive to impress their girlfriends.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

Peter leans away from Nat. Anger pulses through him, hot and sharp, and Nat seems to realize she’s crossed the line. That’s the thing about Nat; she’s never judgmental, and she certainly never offers unsolicited advice.

“I’ve overstepped, haven’t I?” she says mildly. From anyone else, the words would repel him, send him spiraling down the rabbit hole of insecurity and instability. But this is Nat. He can tell Nat anything, if he could just figure out how to give the words meaning.

“I am _not_ doing this to impress MJ,” Peter snaps. “That’s not . . . I’m . . . I can’t . . .”

Nat’s face is expressionless. She doesn’t apologize. Peter doesn’t expect her to.

Peter can’t bring himself to look at her, but he knows that there’s concern on Nat’s face. He knows that he shouldn’t have snapped, shouldn’t have lost his cool, but he’s so damn sick of people not understanding.

 _So explain it to her,_ says the little voice in his head that sounds an awful lot like MJ.

Peter wants to tell her about all the words floating around his head. He wants to explain about how he _needs_ to get them out. 

He wants to tell Nat about all the things he didn’t have time to say the first time around, when Thanos snapped and the world turned to dust. He wants to tell Nat about how he never got to tell May he loved her. How, when it came down to it, his last words were a string of incoherent apologies that will guest star in Mr. Stark’s nightmares for the rest of their lives. And now everyone is back, and somehow nobody died, and there are all these words that are spinning around his head that he can’t bring himself to say.

Peter wants to tell Nat that the words he writes will still be etched on the paper, even if Peter disappears into nothingness.

Instead, he says, “I’m sorry.”

And suddenly Peter’s back with Tony on that damned planet, and Peter’s body is disintegrating around him, and—

\--And Tony is asleep upstairs with Pepper, and Titan is millions of miles away. And Peter is here with Nat, who’s looking at him with concern and sadness and another emotion that Peter has never seen her wear before.

Nat picks up the pen.

“Alright,” she says. There is an unusual warmth to her voice, and Peter breaths. Every word she speaks is careful and precise, because this is Nat, and Nat knows how to make words meaningful. “Will you teach me, Peter?”


	2. How Natasha Passes on the Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay.

As Peter passes on the gift of calligraphy to her, Natasha picks up with breathtaking quickness.

Her slant is always consistent, even from the very start. Her letters are evenly spaced, and it only takes her half an hour to get the curve down. Her lowercase ‘d,’ hands down the most difficult letter, is mastered by the time Happy arrives to take Peter to school.

As he shoves textbooks into his backpack, she silently hands him a travel mug of hot chocolate. He’s looking at her with a strange expression on his face. It takes her a minute to realize it’s a look of awe.

“Your hands are always so steady.” Two identical dimples appear on either side of his smile, and he runs a hand through his curly hair.

“I once used a plastic spork to reinflation Barton’s collapsed lung,” she says. “My hands don’t shake.”

Happy coughs from the doorway, but Peter’s brown eyes widen. He mouths woah.

Natasha shoots Happy a triumphant smirk, and his ruddy face reddens slightly. 

“We should get going, Pete,” says Happy.

“Yeah, yeah.” Peter’s tone is playfully feisty – Natasha’s done enough prodding to know that Peter’s not exactly thrilled that Happy is screwing his aunt. Still, the smile he gives Happy is genuine; despite all of his unprocessed emotions, Peter is not a grudge holder. 

“Goodbye, Peter,” says Natasha. She leans down close to him, lowering her voice to a murmur so Happy can’t hear. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he whispers back. 

She pauses. Deliberates. Weighs what to say. 

“For teaching me calligraphy,” she says. “And for choosing to share your words with me.”

One hundred unreadable emotions flit across Peter’s face. For once, he has nothing to say. Instead, he rises onto his tiptoes and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a hug. He’s grown; he’s now tall enough that his chin can rest on her shoulder. 

Natasha allows herself three seconds – just three – to hug him back, ruffling his curly hair with affection that borderlines on maternal. She makes a point to avoid eye contact with Happy, who’s expression of blatant shock is almost enough to make her laugh.

Peter shoves a crumpled-up piece of paper into her hand. Then he’s pulling away, grabbing his backpack from the counter, and steering Happy towards the door. He’s jabbering incessantly about some class he’s thinking about dropping; Natasha wonders vaguely how he has time to breathe. 

When they’re gone, she pours herself another cup of hot chocolate and unfolds the piece of paper Peter handed her.

In shaky, firm calligraphy, he’s written a string of nonsensical words. _Unspoken, but not unfelt. Thank you. Friend. Family. Understanding. Incredible._

“I love you too, kid,” she whispers, before she has a chance to stop herself. Before she has a chance to filter out the heaviness and compartmentalize her feelings. 

-

She finds Clint later that day.

He’s staying in Avengers tower until the divorce goes through, and then he says he’ll find his own place somewhere in the city. Natasha hates him for it sometimes, before she can exhale and find a place of indifferent apathy. She can’t even count how many times she sacrificed herself for him on Vormir before they got the timelines right, all in the hopes that he could come back and put his family back together. 

Even after everything he’s done, after all the crimes he committed in those five years of hell, she believes that he could do it. He could get Laura to forgive him, strengthen his relationship with her, and be a good father for his children. 

He told her once, right after he’d been served the divorce papers, that he was too much of a fuck-up to be good for his family. He’d said it with a rue laugh, empty eyes, and a stomach full of tequila. It’s the only time he’s said anything remotely serious since The Blip.

He’s on the archery range, taking a shot of whisky before every release. He’s pissed, swaying slightly on his feet as he hums God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen to himself. Still, his hands are steady, and despite his inebriation most of the arrows are still dead center.

“Day drinking, are we?”

It’s almost funny, how fast he whirls around. His gaze takes a moment to land on her. When it finally does, he smiles at her with unfocused eyes. 

“My therapist says I’m not allowed to call her during school hours,” he explains. Natasha doesn’t understand.

“You’re bleeding,” she says. There’s a long gash running down the fleshy part of his arm, oozing blood at an alarming rate. He’ll need stitches. 

He glances at it. “Yikes,” he says. “How did that happen?”

Natasha walks over to him and gently removes the bow and quiver from his shoulders. He swallows hard, staring into her eyes with unexpected clarity. There’s pain in his gaze. She wonders if he carries it with him all the time, or only when he looks at her. 

“Come on, Legolas,” she says, taking his hand. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

A slight spasm runs through his body, but he nods.

“Leave the bottle here,” she says when he reaches for it. For once, he listens.

-

They sit at the kitchen table. Her hands are steady as she cleans his cut. Her stitches are as even as her calligraphy. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, when Clint refuses to take his eyes off of her.

“No,” he says. He reaches for the rubbing alcohol, and she bats his hand away.

She pauses, to try and collect her thoughts. There’s no way her words can be precise if she’s allowing herself to be ruled by emotion.

“Why?” she finally asks.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“How many times did we go to Vormir?” he says, instead of answering. His blue eyes hold raw emotion. He’s never been good at keeping his face clear. Even when they went undercover, he held onto his feelings with a death grip. Ironically, it’s how he got people to trust him. 

“No idea,” she replies, just to keep him talking.

“Well, it was a lot,” he says. She finishes the last stitch, but he doesn’t even seem to notice the sting. “Yet, somehow, you were always the one to die. Every single time.”

“I’m a better fighter than you.” There’s no need for false modesty, no need to sugarcoat reality. 

“Did you want to die?”

She resists the urge to throttle him. “Of course not.”

His blue eyes damp. She tries to pretend it’s from the pain of the stitches.

 _What would Peter do?_ Is all Natasha can think.

So she presses herself against him, resting her head against the nook of his neck. His arms wrap around her instantly, warm and heart-wrenchingly tight. His body shudders with a sob – just one – and then he goes still.

Two hugs in one day. She must be going soft. 

She pulls back, and gently pulls a notebook towards her. Peter must’ve left it here last night.

“What are you doing?” Clint asks. His voice is steady, as though his momentary breakdown ever happened. “Are we stealing the schooltime accessories of children now? Why, Natasha. I had no idea you had it in you! Where should we hide it?”

Natasha tears out a page and takes the pushpen Peter gave her out of her pocket.

“Easy there, Katniss,” she says, her tone mild. “I’m going to teach you calligraphy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful comments and feedback on the first chapter. I woke up this morning to two new comments, even though I posted this months ago. There's no way I can leave all of you wonderful people hanging. 
> 
> Once again, sorry for the delay.

**Author's Note:**

> My [ tumblr](https://isnt-it-pretty-to-think-so-tr.tumblr.com/).


End file.
